Dr. Colleen Hartman Appointed Deputy Director For Science, Operations and Program Performance at Goddard

GREENBELT, Md., July 10, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Director Chris Scolese today announced he has named Dr. Colleen Hartman to the position of deputy director for science, operations and program performance at Goddard in Greenbelt, Md.

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For the last year, Hartman served as the assistant associate administrator in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. In her new post, Dr. Hartman will assist in executive leadership and overall direction and management of the center and its assigned science programs and activities.

"I am delighted that Colleen has accepted this challenging position," said Scolese. "She has spent many years managing the technical progress and evaluating the performance of extremely complex scientific missions, so her experience will be invaluable to NASA and to the center."

Prior to serving as the assistant associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, Dr. Hartman was professor of space policy and international affairs at the George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs in Washington.

Before joining the faculty at George Washington University, Dr. Hartman served as the deputy associate administrator at NASA's Science Mission Directorate for two years and, for the two years prior to that, as the deputy assistant administrator at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. As division director for NASA's planetary missions, Dr. Hartman was instrumental in developing innovative approaches to powering space probes destined for the farthest reaches of our solar system, including in-space propulsion and nuclear power and propulsion. While at NASA Headquarters, she spearheaded the selection process for the New Horizons probe to Pluto and she also gained administration and congressional approval for an entirely new class of funded missions called "New Frontiers," to explore planets, asteroids and comets in our solar system.

After beginning her government career as a presidential management intern, she worked on Capitol Hill, as an engineer at NASA Goddard, as a senior policy analyst at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and as deputy division director for technology at NASA Headquarters. Dr. Hartman has built and launched scientific balloon payloads, worked on robotic vision, overseen the development of the command and data handling systems for a variety of Earth-observing spacecraft, and served as NASA program manager for dozens of missions, the most successful of which was the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE). Data from the COBE spacecraft gained two NASA-sponsored scientists the Nobel Prize in physics in 2006.

Dr. Hartman earned a bachelor's degree in zoology from Pomona College in Claremont, Calif. She holds a master's in public administration from the University of Southern California, and she received a master's and a doctorate in physics from the Catholic University of America in Washington.

Her numerous awards include the Presidential Rank Award of Meritorious Senior Executive, the NASA Outstanding Performance Award, the Claire Booth Luce Fellowship in Science and Engineering and the Hugh L. Dryden Memorial Space Club Award.

For more information about NASA Goddard, visit:

www.nasa.gov/goddard

SOURCE NASA